Greetings, loyal servants of the divine Emperor. This is the second article in a series dedicated to unsightly and artless video games in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, which have reason to both mercilessly criticize and honestly love. And few games alternate between feelings of like and dislike in me like “Space Hulk: Ancension” does.
Since the setting of the “Universe of Eternal War” is at the forefront of everything here, I would like to start with it. As a rule, "Warhammer 40,000" appears in the media as a space of thundering, grotesque war, where mundane dieselpunk and First World War tanks coexist with pronounced gigantomania in the form of walking robots and spaceships. There are also human super-cities ravaged by the invasions of heretics and xenos, there is also the utmost cruelty of the Imperium towards both enemies and its subjects, accompanied by frantic religious zeal, and, of course, the infallible Space Marines, desperately prevailing in the last push. This is how the universe is portrayed by most of the media associated with it, from countless books and graphic art to three-dimensional animation and the same video games, among which the famous “Dawn of War” is the first to be remembered. However, “Warhammer” is not limited to this, and “Space Hulk: Ancension” touches on another, more sophisticated side of the perception of this world – the galaxy is hostile and filled with horrors, behind the blank bulkheads of dead ships drifting in the void lurk ungodly creatures, eager to desecrate sacred human flesh, and then present the Imperium as an offering for the eternally hungry creatures of the void.
In the case of the games of the "Space Hulk" series, such creatures are originally genestealers, creatures that received their name for a very non-trivial way of crossing with people, but above all, they are formidable and agile predators that feel great in the cramped and dark holds of starships, the dirty backyards of hive cities and other beautiful places. Genestealers, not without unique differences, are an homage to xenomorphs from the “Aliens” universe, just as “Space Hulk” itself is inspired by the original film, with the exception that instead of a frightened rabble of spacefarers and a woman with a cat, alien organisms meet the stern defenders of humanity – the space marines, or rather their best warriors, clad in Terminator armor.
"Space Hulk: Ancension" itself is modest in the details of the setting, but, unlike many other games in the universe, which do not provide any context for what is happening, it somehow introduces the player to the essence, although it is not very difficult. In addition, although the plot in the game is nominal and has no direct development, from mission to mission the player is greeted with short briefings that give the player’s actions a narrative form, give meaning to what is happening on the screen and are simply well written. There is a literary presentation of the world in "Space Hulk: Ancension", but the game achieves the proper atmosphere through artistic methods – echoing ambient in the main menu, thick and ominous darkness on the levels, the tinny voice of taciturn space marines, the heart-rending howl of xenos, and the general design of the environment, albeit to the least extent. And for what the game is, namely turn-based tactics, the mood it paints is very true. After all, Space Hulk – this is the name of the huge dead ships through which the player moves – is one of the most sinister and terrifying phenomena that can be found in the galaxy. Only urgent necessity and an unbreakable will can force one to board these ghostly ships, in the depths of which savage death has settled.
Now about the practical side of the game. "Space Hulk: Ancension" is a turn-based strategy so familiar to the video game "Warhammer", whose first distinctive feature is the desire to be as close as possible to the original source.
For the sake of objectivity, I’ll immediately note that “Space Hulk: Ancension” of 2014 is either a direct continuation, or a remake, or even simply a remaster of the “Space Hulk” released a year earlier from the same studio, and, nominally being the same game with the same gameplay, graphics and ideological content, it differs significantly from its predecessor in the details and subtleties of the implementation of the same attributes. I’m not going to pay much attention to this, but as an example I’ll just say that 2013’s “Space Hulk” tried to imitate the original board game so closely that even to calculate the probability of a successful hit, weapon jamming and other variables, it used some kind of dice with their range of numbers from 1 to 6, secretly using them for every significant action, which reduced the game to the most severe randomness and took the feeling out of the player’s hands any control over the situation. The game of 2014, which I am going to talk about and which I will further call simply “Space Hulk”, among other things, abandoned this controversial idea in favor of much more familiar percentages of success, which, in itself, is much better, but still leaves a huge number of problems. But more on that later.
Conceptually, the game is a level of many intersecting sections and corridors, at different ends of which genestealers appear randomly, whose sole purpose is to tear apart the uninvited guests – that is, us. We, the Space Marine Terminators, the best of the best, consisting of five or even ten people, move around the level, guided by one of several possible missions, in the process of completing it, occupying defensive lines, monitoring the perimeter and simply exterminating the xenos-scum caught in the crosshairs of the storm bolter. The key difficulty of the game lies in the fact that although the terminators are equipped with lethal weapons, they are slow and clumsy, while the gene stealers are numerous and extremely dangerous in close combat. It is in the weakness of the terminators, their correct command and minimizing threats to their lives that the tactical side of the game finds itself.
Perhaps it has something to do with its tabletop forerunner, or perhaps the clever idea of this balance of power, but among many similar games, Space Hulk is the one that most deserves to be called a tactics game. If in “Deathwatch”, which I reviewed earlier, the player, albeit with some caution, but steadily moved forward, relying on his own superiority and focusing on the place, then in “Space Hulk” such methods of warfare quickly lead to the death of the entire squad and, as a result, defeat. A Space Marine is many times superior to a mere mortal in strength and endurance, and a Marine clad in Terminator armor has an advantage over his fellows, but he is still too slow and vulnerable to enemy claws. This is expressed in the fact that the game does not have the concept of health points as such – every successful blow to the terminator leads to its death. And if face to face the terminator is still able to parry a blow and crush the attacker’s body with a plate gauntlet, then when attacked from the flanks and rear he is absolutely helpless.
Therefore, it is extremely important to maintain tactical insight and flexibility, to distribute terminators along the path of movement in such a way that each of them covers the other and is not caught by surprise. This is not so easy due to the fact that you are forced to dive deeper into the belly of a dead ship, leave previous positions and take new ones, anticipate the enemy’s attack and be ready to meet the threat around the next turn. However, this is not all, because the enemy is numerous, and no matter how brave the terminator who lags behind the group is, his bolter will soon become empty or overheat, alien creatures will most likely get to him and one of them will be able to disembowel the hero of humanity. This, of course, is unacceptable, because the blood of the righteous is the valuable currency of the Emperor.
If we abandon the pathos, then all https://bitbookcasino.co.uk/ the player’s functions come down to alternating commands to move terminators, directing them towards a possible threat, calculating action points that should be enough to repel an attack, reloading, turning the body in the right direction and of course overwatch – fire control of the terminator’s field of view during the enemy’s turn. And it may seem that this is criminally insufficient to be called tactics, but in a good game it is not how many skills you have that matter, but how you are asked to use them. The gameplay is inevitably monotonous and consists of repeated actions, but this is not a cyclical sequence of them – you move towards the goal, you think and make decisions about what to do in a specific situation with the input that you have.
Terminators can move in unbroken formation along a wide or branching path, each constantly turning in its own direction, or, more wisely, spread out and advance evenly separately, distracting enemies and covering each other with fire from different ends of the level connected by common paths, or taking a position at the crossroads, holding off the xenos advance while the rest continue moving or recover from the battle. Very often, a fighter with a flamethrower becomes an indispensable member of the group, instantly incinerating as many monsters as would otherwise be impossible to contain, or, on the contrary, blocking corridors, filling them with flames, allowing brothers to leave the area without being overtaken from behind. The tactical component comes into full force when a confident start smoothly turns into the understanding that the enemy is beginning to put pressure on you and any careless or thoughtless movement can lead to the death of the terminator, which most often means the collapse of the formation and the opening of vulnerability of the remaining members of the squad. The diverse picture of enemy offensives and possible responses to them, many small but important moments for the outcome of the game and constant anxiety about the possible loss of terminators make this game a true tactics game, in which there is no little of a logical problem, the successful solution of which leads the paratroopers to victory.
The player can choose from different classes of terminators, types of weapons, and the ability to upgrade. Even the choice of the Space Marine Order affects the subsequent game, since it has its own bonuses and negative effects. But these are understandable and standard things for games of this genre. It’s time for us to talk about the bad. About the root flaw of "Space Hulk", which almost negates all the advantages of this game and, having realized which I abandoned it for the next few years.
I would like to start from afar, with a textbook example of the marketing policy of “EA” and “Dragon age 2” in particular. You can treat this game however you like, personally I love it a little bashfully – it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that the publisher released a whole ton of add-ons for “Dragon Age 2,” most of which were nothing more than a wardrobe of powerful clothes for the main character, which were placed for free right in his home, available for donning at any time. How can I so succinctly outline my complaint about this situation – the game, for no reason, throws at the player a way to complete it much easier than the developer intended, and thereby not only destroys the balance of difficulty existing in the game, but also does not require anything for this except money from the player himself to purchase this sub-addon. These things are not given as a reward for completing additional content, the game does not have a new difficulty level designed for their use, there is not even an in-game reason for the appearance of these items in the main character’s house, it is only said that some of the dresses are heirlooms, associated with his father or something like that. And as a result, the presence of these things produces an effect that is much worse than just refracting the difficulty curve – it kills the desire to play. The desire to go forward and overcome difficulties in order to get a reward – better equipment – is depreciated, just as the player’s efforts put into developing the character, towards becoming stronger are depreciated – after all, it no longer matters how much effort you put in, and what rewards you can find, because you have already been showered with these gifts, there is nothing more to desire. And yes, these items are only for one member of the group out of four, and maybe they are not so powerful in themselves – although they are powerful – and the player has a choice not to wear them, but the very fact that the game puts this choice in front of the player, which should not be put in any case, so as not to destroy the illusion of adventure, the sense of progress and pleasure from it.
The fact is that there is such a thing as a winning strategy – when a person, for obvious reasons, will use the simplest and most effective method of all available. In the case of video games, this is expressed in the player’s use of bugs, cheats, or an unfair advantage that the game itself gives. And in the case of "Dragon age 2", when the game lays out epic rags in front of you like solitaire, you have to make a certain cognitive effort on yourself to refuse such a vile offering. When you make this choice, you will of course no longer pay attention to these chests with junk, but, as I said earlier, this choice, in principle, should not be faced by the player.
And it turns out that if in “Dragon age 2” such a choice, which can break the game and impressions of it, confronts the player once, then in the case of “Space Hulk” it is present almost as an ordinary gameplay option from the very moment the player learns about it. And he is encouraged to play dishonestly by the same dishonest, evil, incorrigible rand.
Or rather, it’s like: randomness is a completely ordinary, familiar percentage of success to all of us, the chance of hitting or dodging, more, less – a completely standard thing, we see in countless games, especially Warhammer games. But in relation to the gameplay basis of "Space Hulk", randomness becomes unbearable for one simple reason – failures caused by randomness are too expensive. As already mentioned, there is no such thing as health points in the game; instead, each terminator is separated from death by only one successful blow from the enemy. And if in the "Deathwatch" I mentioned in the last article, the randomness associated with misses and hits was naturally annoying, but was not fatal, because the paratrooper who did not kill the enemy first had sufficient strength to withstand a retaliatory strike, or could even dodge it, and the game itself assumed closer interaction between the squad, then in the much more tactically oriented "Space Hulk" the player does not have such options and everything is original well-ordered plans and careful progress collapse overnight, because the damn terminator could not, after four attempts, shoot one single genestealer in a cramped corridor, after which he did not hesitate to die like a dog from his claws.
But the chance of a hit is on average 60-80 percent, and it increases when fire is repeated at the same target. And this happens regularly in the game, which completely negates any tactical component of the game. And yes, the game does not end with the loss of one squad member, but it becomes incomparably more difficult – the role of each terminator and the correct location for them are too important.
I haven’t mentioned it before, but one of the key mechanics of the game is blocking the places where genestealers appear in the level – this is done simply, just place the terminator within a certain radius from such a point. Thus, one of the routes that xenos can use is stopped, which allows for a more confident advance. However, if such a terminator dies, this entire wonderful system dies along with him and the monsters do not miss the opportunity to stab the others in the back. And this happens for exactly the same reason – because one single terminator, whose burden fell to cover the rear of the brothers and hold the position, failed the exam in both shooting and hand-to-hand combat. This scenario is especially well illustrated by missions for ten fighters, where with the death of one, everyone else comes into confusion, and there is a need to quickly rebuild, withdraw forces, and withstand more waves of enemies than expected.
I will try to emphasize that the problem is not the mistake itself, which led to the death of the character, which of course can happen. The problem is that not only is this not the fault of the player, who, for his part, performed an excellent maneuver, but also that the player cannot in any way influence whether his terminator remains alive or dies, dragging his brothers with him to the Emperor. And yes, statistically this doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it leaves you in amazement, full of anger and disappointment. I had a situation where four terminators, who already had improved accuracy, could not hit one unfortunate genestealer in the room. Those who say that any probability, regardless of the chance of success, comes down to the formula “50/50” are right – either you are lucky or you are unlucky. The disgusting drawback of "Space Hulk" as a tactic is that it is enormously dependent on randomness and does not offer anything to level out this dependence.
And here I gradually approach the gradation of difficulty offered by the game – easy, normal, hard and impossible. The difficulty determines how many gene stealers you will see at a level, how high is the chance of meeting more powerful individuals, for example, patriarchs with three health points – yes, in relation to gene stealers they are still present. In addition to all this, the level of difficulty determines the initial number of action points for each terminator and even indirectly affects the same chance of accuracy, but most importantly, the most important thing is that on high difficulty, dead terminators are replaced not by brothers of equal level, but by recruits, in other words, with the death of each member, the squad becomes much weaker in the future. And needless to say, they will die. Will die both due to superior numbers of enemies and fewer available actions per turn, will die simply because the player will be forced to leave someone behind because they will not be able to save them, which is especially common in missions where you retreat and have to leave the area.
During my first playthrough, I had the following situation – at a high level of difficulty I made my way from level to level, each time losing one, then two, then three battle brothers, as a result of which the only full-fledged members of my squad were a sergeant and another shooter, while the other three more and more regularly went to the slaughter to complete the assigned tasks. To understand how important leveling up a squad is here, suffice it to say that one point in the agility attribute gives the terminator an additional action point, which, no less, can determine whether he will end his earthly journey at this particular moment or suffer further. And then the moment came when it was no longer possible to complete the game at such a pace – the enemy was pressing in numbers, and my space sailors were unable to somehow adequately resist the threat. Not only is this in itself a big disappointment, but it was at that moment that I discovered the “winner strategy” in this game.
It’s all very simple, the game is about probabilities and is divided into moves, which means that in case of death you need to reboot a move earlier and try again, expecting that this time chance will show itself in your favor. At first, you do this when the game, in your opinion, behaves dishonestly and kills your players where it shouldn’t, and then you start using downloads in any possible situation – whether you made a bad decision, or just decided to try something different, you jump into the Warp a moment ago and replay the moment you didn’t like again, with a more favorable outcome for you. Thus, hypothetically, one terminator can kill a dozen enemies or more in melee combat – just so that when you reload the save again, all the deities of luck bless you. Having realized the dominant role of percentages for success in a game about tactics, having begun to exploit the “winner strategy” in any minimally suitable situation, I very quickly came to the understanding that I was no longer interested in this game and I no longer wanted to stay in it.
There is a note of paradox in this, because the original board game in the same way consists entirely of probabilities, but then living people play with each other, experiencing special emotions even from the roll of dice and what they reveal, from live communication in the process, in the end. I am completely convinced that all these wargames are primarily about collecting and communication, and the gameplay itself plays a secondary role there. Here is a computer game with a computer opponent, and what looked appropriate on the table looks depressing here. And it’s hard to blame the developers – they honestly tried to transfer the game in its original form, but even then they were forced to make concessions, removing some elements of the board game, replacing them with others. In my opinion, it was necessary to develop the game in this direction, replacing the stupid chance of a hit with some modifier with a more predictable result, like the same magazine change and bolter overheating, which are a kind of constant, but you also cannot calculate the exact time until this moment. After all, the game has different types of bolters, accompanying ammunition, passive skills – add one that guarantees a 100% hit in close combat on the first enemy and you could already work with it. The game has some semblance of a “save throw” from the tabletop, when after you get hit, a die is rolled to see if you will die, but this thing works very strangely, or rather, does not work at all on ordinary genestealers.
Another way to hack the game I would say is the ability to start a campaign of another order. "Space Hulk" gives you a choice of several Space Marine chapters and several campaigns for each, but in reality any campaign can be chosen, and you can also move freely between them. The situation is the most stupid when, according to the plot, you have an extremely important mission, there is no time, you need to hurry, but at the same time, your squad, with a wave of the hand, moves to another ship infected with aliens and begins to advance there. Thus, I tried to compensate for the lack of experience of my terminators by starting to play through the campaigns of other orders, but then I realized that, in addition to all the previous vices, I was turning the game into some kind of underdeveloped RPG with experience farming in low-ranking locations. This of course did not add motivation to play.
Ultimately, after a couple of years, I returned to the subject of today’s discussion. The game has many advantages, a gloomy and viscous atmosphere, cold seriousness and that same tactical potential that is still present, no matter how random it is spoiled. And, as in the case of "Dragon age 2", in order not to turn myself away from the game this time, I came up with a system of restrictions – I play only on medium difficulty, where the game does not severely punish for the loss of a combat unit, only the campaign corresponding to the selected order, and without reboots in the process of passing the level. And yes, the average difficulty level is optimal enough to create an illusion, but a fair game, where you are punished for mistakes, and not because the game decided that you will not go further. Especially in the case of the Ultramarines, who themselves have bonuses to shooting, and the architecture of the locations of their campaign is most suitable for mutual covering of fighters, blocking flanks and other tactics. And, yes, the Ultramarines campaign goes through almost without the agony of unpredictable situations, although there were also cases of total myopia that jeopardized the completion of the mission and almost prompted us to restart it, and sometimes it was necessary. But even with such incidents, which will remain the scourge of the game no matter what you do, the game was interesting and enjoyable, almost as you would expect from a game. With the Order of the Imperial Fists, the situation is already different, there are ugly levels from an architectural point of view and it is much more difficult to navigate through them, and the ill-fated random guy seemed to have decided to get even for the successes of the sons of Guilliman, forcing me to load, but in a single order, because the game behaved very vilely. And for some reason the Imperial Fists don’t have a librarian.
By the way, among other things, the “winner’s strategy,” but on a smaller scale, is the presence in “Space Hulk” of librarians, in common people sorcerers. This is the most powerful and most versatile of all Terminators, whose presence greatly simplifies the game, offering new options for actions that would previously have had deadly consequences. The Librarian, like a flamethrower, is able to immediately burn out a dozen xenos degenerates at once, even without making eye contact with them, and can also block the passage with a force wall, which is indispensable when retreating, or if the next goner terminator never hits and is about to die. In addition, the Librarian is the only member of the squad whose death you don’t worry about – his weapon does not provide any excessive advantages, but I have never had a Librarian be killed in close combat, at least in the couple of dozen hours that I devoted to the game after a long break. So there is no choice at all between a paratrooper-sorcerer and an ordinary sergeant leading a detachment, even though there can only be one librarian for all ten people. But I would venture to say that such a strong combat unit does not spoil the game, but rather makes it more comfortable, more predictable and free to act. Without the librarian, the Ultramarines campaign would definitely not have been easy for me.
It’s funny – despite the fact that in close combat all terminators, except the librarian, are disabled, the game has a special melee weapon, which gives a significantly higher percentage of hit success than the standard one, but the nuance is that it replaces small arms and your ward can no longer fire. I don’t know what kind of perverted cases this is generally designed for, but out of curiosity I tried to equip one of the terminators with a similar weapon – he died in a fight with the second genestealer that he encountered. Even funnier if you died from the first one. For some reason, on the ancient ship of the Space Wolves, instead of the hero of this order who fell many centuries ago, there is an Ultramarine, but these are amusing sins of the narrative and nothing more.
What’s the result?? Don’t even know. “Space Hulk” is an intelligent work, perfectly realizes its potential, skillfully adheres to the canons of both the original board game and the setting, in addition to everything, it is simply interesting to play, but the defects that lie at the very foundation of the game can make it unbearable to complete, denigrating the most positive impressions of the passage. That’s why I don’t dare recommend it to anyone. Random hasn’t made a single game good, and it’s also mutilated this one inside and out. But I myself, having spent a lot of hours in “Space Hulk”, having had time to be deeply disappointed in it, and to rethink my attitude and approach to this work, in the end, perhaps, I was satisfied with it. Even with all the breadth of its shortcomings, "Space Hulk" belongs to the galaxy of those examples of the industry that attract as much as they repel.